1. Technical Field
This application relates to managing system polling.
2. Description of Related Art
Computer systems may include different resources used by one or more host processors. Resources and host processors in a computer system may be interconnected by one or more communication connections. These resources may include, for example, data storage devices such as those included in the data storage systems manufactured by EMC Corporation. These data storage systems may be coupled to one or more servers or host processors and provide storage services to each host processor. Multiple data storage systems from one or more different vendors may be connected and may provide common data storage for one or more host processors in a computer system.
A host processor may perform a variety of data processing tasks and operations using the data storage system. For example, a host processor may perform basic system I/O operations in connection with data requests, such as data read and write operations.
Host processor systems may store and retrieve data using a storage device containing a plurality of host interface units, disk drives, and disk interface units. The host systems access the storage device through a plurality of channels provided therewith. Host systems provide data and access control information through the channels to the storage device and the storage device provides data to the host systems also through the channels. The host systems do not address the disk drives of the storage device directly, but rather, access what appears to the host systems as a plurality of logical disk units. The logical disk units may or may not correspond to the actual disk drives. Allowing multiple host systems to access the single storage device unit allows the host systems to share data in the device. In order to facilitate sharing of the data on the device, additional software on the data storage systems may also be used.
Configuration information may be associated with a data storage system. The configuration information may include information describing the physical and/or logical configuration in the data storage system. The logical configuration information may include, for example, information regarding logical objects such as RAID groupings, logically defined devices, and the like.
Client-server computer storage configurations or networks are well known. The “client” (human user, or graphical user interface (GUI), or workstation, etc.) is operatively coupled to hardware/software functionality known as the “server” which services the client by responding to client requests to store information and/or retrieve stored information. Multiple clients can be operatively coupled to multiple servers in a particular client-server network configuration.
Effective management of client-server networks is important to help ensure that the networks operate as intended and serve network users as expected. This management function may be accomplished through distributed management software which can be distributed throughout a client-server network. If a client-server network is running such software that is also object-oriented, typically many objects reside in each of the clients and/or servers. An object, in computer software terms, is a dedicated area of memory which can be thought of as an impervious container holding both data and instructions within itself, both defining itself and its relationships to other objects in the computer system or network. An object can send and receive messages to and from other objects, respond and react to such messages (e.g. commands) but shall normally be impervious to internal scrutiny. For example, in a storage processor each object may describe or relate to a specific tangible detail in the processor (e.g. a fan, power switch, cache memory, power supply, disk drive interface, etc.). These tangible objects in the storage processor can send messages to each other and to other objects outside the processor such as a disk array.